Asia

2010

New York, April 9,
2010—The Thai government should restore access to news outlets censored after
a state of emergency was declared Wednesday in response to antigovernment
protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Journalists
reporting on the unrest are increasingly vulnerable to physical assault as
clashes between protesters and authorities escalate.

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New York, April 8,
2010—Reports that freelance documentary filmmaker Asad Qureshi has gone
missing on a reporting trip in a tribal area of Pakistan are deeply concerning,
the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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New York, April 7,
2010—Fiji’s military regime should withdraw a draft decree that would
regulate media ownership and news content, while authorizing the imposition of fines
and prison terms for violations, the Committee to Protect Journalists said
today.

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New York, April 2, 2010—The denial of service attack on the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) Web site is contributing to an atmosphere in which journalists feel their communication is not secure and their reporting is under threat, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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New York, April 2, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern today after a Japanese official said freelance Japanese journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka had apparently been kidnapped in northern Afghanistan.

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Our friends at China Digital Times have translated recent orders from China’s State Council Information Office to domestic news organizations and Web sites about how to handle the country’s ongoing dispute with Google. We’re posting an excerpt here, but please read the whole link. There’s a great discussion about government censors’ plans for monitoring social networking and microblogging sites.

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New York, March 31,
2010—News reports that the
Yahoo e-mail accounts of reporters and others in China and Taiwan have been compromised
are a reminder that journalists must be vigilant when communicating over the
Internet, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. CPJ called on
Internet companies to reassess their business practices in countries where
users’ communications cannot be adequately protected.

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Dear President Arroyo and Chief Justice Puno: We are greatly concerned by the apparent lack of an effective government response to threats made against Marites Danguilan Vitug, one of the Philippines’ senior and most eminent journalists. Vitug said she believes your intervention will serve as a deterrent to whoever is trying to intimidate her, and, hopefully, to those who try to intimidate other journalists in the future.

Midas Marquez, spokesman for the Philippine
Supreme Court, has told local reporters that he considers death threats sent
anonymously by text message to journalist
Marites Dañguilan Vitug to be “funny” and “ridiculous.” Marquez was asked
to comment in his official role because the threats began shortly after the release of Vitug’s new book, Shadow of Doubt: Probing the Supreme Court,
which critiques the inner workings of the high court.

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New York, March 29,
2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns and calls for a thorough
investigation into grenade attacks launched against two state-owned television
news stations in Thailand.
The attacks—one against army-run Channel 5, the other against the National Broadcasting
Services of Thailand (NBT)—took
place Saturday night in the capital, Bangkok.